Obama sees ill grandmother on sombre Hawaii trip

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

HONOLULU (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama made a detour from the presidential campaign trail to see his ailing grandmother in Hawaii on Friday, taking a sombre trip to make perhaps his last visit to the woman who helped raise him.

After a 10-hour flight from Indiana to Hawaii on Thursday night, Obama hustled straight from the plane to 85-year-old Madelyn Dunham's bedside in the Honolulu apartment where he lived as a teenager.

He was back at the apartment again early on Friday. Obama decided to see her less than two weeks before the November 4 election, fearing that if he waited any longer it would be too late.

"I want to give her a kiss and a hug," Obama told ABC News before he left Indiana, in an interview aired on Friday on "Good Morning America." "Without going through the details too much, she's gravely ill."

The woman he calls "Toot" -- short for "tutu," the Hawaiian word for grandmother -- helped raise him from the age of 10 while Obama's mother was working in Indonesia. Dunham is often featured in his campaign-trail speeches.

"She's really been one of the cornerstones of my life," he told ABC, adding she had been inundated with flowers and e-mails and calls from total strangers since news of her illness became public.

Dunham recently broke her hip and "she had some other problems that were getting worse. You know, we weren't sure, and I'm still not sure, whether she makes it to Election Day. We're all praying and we hope she does," Obama said.

Obama has said he did not want to repeat the mistake he made with his mother, who died of cancer a decade ago before he could reach her bedside.